How to Use Market Information to Create Your Career Opportunities in Switzerland

To be able to create the very best career opportunities in Switzerland, you need to be able to break into the hidden job market. We have already covered a lot of foundational work in the previous blog posts and now we will look at how you can connect the dots.

Absolutely everything you need in terms of information to get to the hidden gems in Switzerland’s job market are available out there, just not to everyone. Only the people who invest their time in doing the proper research and open their eyes will be able to find these fantastic opportunities.

Everybody else will be left with the average jobs that are advertised publicly.

Doing Your Own Research

There are several ways to conduct the research. I suggest that you start with doing your own research to get a better idea of what’s out there.

Use Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube, forums, newspapers, newsletter and anything you can get your hands on. You will be able to find very important information.

Don’t just focus on what’s clearly stated in the writing you look at but read between the lines. Connect the dots of different viewpoints and opinions when you read about news.

Combine the information you get from the different sources, find patterns and be the best Sherlock Holmes you can be.

This is the first step in this research process because this way you can get an idea of the bigger picture which is necessary before you do deeper research.

Leveraging Your Network

In the second step of the research, you dive deep into your network. This is how Konstantia found her job in Zurich and it’s how most of my clients become aware of the real hidden gems in the market.

There is no better research method than talking to people. Start with looking at the research you did yourself.

What did you already find out yourself about a company, the people who work there and everything that is going on? What information do you need to explore deeper and which changes could uncover the biggest opportunities for you? What would be the most exciting thing for you to do in the organization?

Once you put together your existing puzzle pieces, look for people in your network who can help you explore things deeper. Who works at this company? Who knows people at this company? Who knows a lot about this industry?

Talk to as many people as possible and you will be amazed how much information you get that you would never have been able to get otherwise.

Another wonderful thing about talking to people for research is that the information is very timely. Usually, you get to know what happened yesterday in a project or even today, so listen carefully.

The clues you get from talking to people are the ones that will eventually lead you to the most valuable hidden career opportunities in the market.

Connecting the Dots

As you can see by now, without the network, it’s so much harder to get anything done. If you don’t have people supporting you along the way with encouragement, feedback and inputs, your chances of getting to know and eventually talk to the hiring responsible are much smaller.

The entire framework that I teach & coach people in is built on a solid foundation so you are actually able to connect the dots later on. Without a strong foundation, it’s hardly possible to get the very best opportunities where you get to do what you love every day and at the same time earn a high income.

The Argentinian Lady Who Got Offered 4 Hidden Gems

A few months ago, I started to work with a coaching client who is originally from Argentina. She lived in Madrid when she approached me for the coaching and shortly after that relocated to Zurich.

She decided to move into the pharmaceutical sector and was looking to join one of the big companies. She met a lot of people over the weeks and got some amazing insights into companies, the industry and the Swiss market.

One thing she noticed was that people told her over and over again that they thought she was too smart to join the big companies.

They told her that they only work there because of the money and that she would get bored very fast in such a rigid environment. Many people told her to start her own company or to join a startup.

Based on that feedback, we changed the direction and headed into the startup field.

She attended an event in Zurich for startups and got to know one of the speakers there. They talked only for a short period of time until he told her that they should get together soon to talk about potential opportunities to work together.

They met again for coffee and he offered my client 4 very interesting opportunities with him or with other startups he invested in.

After that initial success, more people started to offer her to join them and things started rolling in the right direction. This only happened because she changed course into a direction that now truly excites her and that she wants to explore in details.

She recently sent me an email and said “The new challenge is to find the perfect fit, evaluating the opportunities tossed at me.”

The Market Will Always Tell You… If You Listen

As you can see with my Argentinian coaching client, it’s not always the first thing you pursue that will be right for you. Sometimes you need to recognize that the direction is not right for you and change it.

Most people have this gut feeling that it may not be the right direction but the head says it’s right because you have walked this path for the past 20 years. The gut feeling is usually right.

You usually get the hints from the people you talk to if you are pursuing the right path or not. This is why when somebody comes to me and has no idea in which direction he wants to go, we do a short assessment and then move on in a direction that could be right and adjust along the way.

Only by testing something, you can know if it works or not. Simply thinking about it does not solve the problem.

When you start building your network in a specific direction, listen for the clues. Listen to your gut feeling and you will be right most of the time.